IP Intelligence Within Online Gaming Applications

Transcription

1 IP Intelligence Within Online Gaming Applications A European perspective Overview online gambling generates $33.6 billion GLOBALLY OF WHICH EUROPEAN COUNTRIES generate 28% of the market European countries lead the way in online gambling and operate one of the largest markets in the world, generating 28% of the $33.6 billion global market (source EU & Statista). Differing regulatory frameworks across the 28 member states adds a level of complexity to the market and many countries have adopted protectionist strategies. For example, despite the principle of EU cross border freedom to provide services, only four countries allow an operator licenced in one country to operate in their country, the UK, Cyprus, Malta and Ireland. Consequently the need to verify player location and connection characteristics is of paramount importance and has loss of licence implications if violated. There is however some degree of change emerging and incredible opportunities for operators and suppliers as many countries are liberalising their regulations by removing some of the internal restrictions, such as Germany, Sweden and The Netherlands. Over 7 million consumers in the EU participate in some form of on-line gambling and annual revenues are expected to be in excess of 13 billion by 2015 (source EU Commission), with annual growth rates of 15%. A significant market and operators are keen to protect their revenue streams, acutely aware of the risk posed by rapidly changing, complex legislation and exposure to fraud. Country specifics UK as an example The UK currently allows any operator with a licence from one of the white listed countries to trade in the UK. Legislation is changing to require all operators to obtain a licence from the UK Gambling Commission in order to offer services in the UK. Justification for the change in law includes greater control over suspicious betting activity, social responsibility, technical standards and fraud. Challenges will arise as operators seek to defend tax benefits already gained from operations currently trading in tax havens such as Malta and Gibraltar. 1

2 IP Intelligence within Online Gaming Applications 2 Jurisdictional control The majority of online gaming sites trade with some form of jurisdictional control, only allowing players from legal or regulated markets to bet or wager. Adherence depends on operators approach to regulations, country of operation and which markets they trade in. In more developed markets such as Europe and the US, adherence to regulations is well defined. Best practice requires the identification of a visitors location based on their IP address, to ensure that the user is accessing from a country or region where on-line gambling is permitted. NetAcuity s premium IP solution includes accurate proxy data, information that is absent from low cost or free IP databases, which enables the identification of visitors attempting to cloak the country they are accessing from. Content localisation Providing geographically relevant content s response and revenues. Instantly displaying a website in the correct language and currency removes the need for country selectors, improving conversion rates. Content can be made more meaningful, for example by immediately presenting local sports, making a website more engaging. relevance response revenues Look beyond country for compliance The FBI recently wrote Congress for the second time expressing the Agency s concern that online gambling - including Internet poker - is vulnerable to money laundering and cheating and is a vehicle to bribe public officials and others. Online players can disguise both their location and identity and thereby fleece unsuspecting innocent participants. Source Yahoo News The latest European Central Bank figures (2012) reports nearly a 15% increase on the previous year of card not present fraud, a trend that has changed from previous years which had shown some declines. Betting and gambling sites are high profile targets for the fraudster. When an operator increases security, defrauders simply move to the next vulnerable site. Integrating IP intelligence systems that look beyond only country assignments for compliance, add new levels of security. Digital Element s NetAcuity solution delivers accurate and granular information on how visitors connect to the internet, such as location, proxy, ISP and connection speed, which helps reduce fraud by 90%+ and s players on-line experience. Knowing more about how and where a customer is connecting from greatly s detection rates. proxy ISP

3 IP Intelligence within Online Gaming Applications 3 Stop fraudsters from cashing out with IP Intelligence Geography is part of the fraud detection landscape and smart operators take it further than just location, by using NetAcuity s advanced intelligence parameters to identify proxies, VPNs, anonymisers, tors, mobiles, ISPs, domains and hosting centres. By providing more than just geography, NetAcuity IP Intelligence can identify greater numbers of suspicious connections. detect and defend against on-line fraud Building smarter rules around fraud detection and automating the process is proven to increase detection rates, reduce false positives and visitor experience. IP Intelligence can be used to automatically block suspect traffic emanating from proxies or hosting centres. Additionally, premium IP data can be used to automatically request verification (via or SMS) or flag suspect activity for further internal review. The financial impact of fraud $ Invest in new fraud screening ip information simple and cost effective Failure to identify fraud has a significant impact on the bottom line, in addition to the damage inflicted on a brands reputation. Coupled with other negative market factors such as increasing registration cancellations, customer retention issues and increasing new customer acquisition costs, threats to a gaming business s profitably are numerous. Investment in new fraud screening information is a simple and cost effective method to help mitigate loss and automation is the key to success. Staying ahead of on-line fraud is a never ending process and careful planning is needed to ensure a business is well protected. The Cybersource 2013 online fraud report lists IP checking as in use or under consideration by 28% of its surveyed respondents. One of the key conclusions from the report was to defend in depth and adopt multiple strategies to stay ahead. One of the key strategies identified was IP Intelligence and proxy identification, which assists in the identification of anonymous connections. More gaming companies are adopting advanced IP Intelligence to detect and defend against on-line fraud.

4 IP Intelligence within Online Gaming Applications 4 Mobile connections Using a mobile device for ecommerce and completing a purchase still creates an IP connection. Users are 80% more likely to be on a wifi network due to speed, convenience or cost, around 20% connect via 3G, 4G or LTE. 80% A wifi connection is just the same as a wired connection and NetAcuity can accurately determine a wifi location and the types of proxy being used, so the same rules apply. If connecting via 3G, 4G or LTE it is recommended that additional information from CRM systems or in app location data is used to aid verification. 80% more likely to be on a wifi network due to speed, convenience or cost Additionally, only a fraction of people who connect via a mobile device enable location tracking via 3G or 4G. Utilising IP intelligence requires no opt in, allowing the targeting of virtually all mobile traffic, whilst maintaining user anonymity and compliance with end-user privacy. IP Intelligence at work Easy to deploy on an internal server in less than 20 minutes, queried by various supplied API s, the NetAcuity response time is fast and reliable at less than 0.3 milliseconds, allowing it to handle up to 30,000 requests per second. Know more about where customers are coming from and importantly how they connect will deliver accurate geographic information and important routing information critical to payment systems. deploy on a server in less than 20 minutes Digital Element is the only dedicated Global provider of IP Intelligence. With over 15 years of experience and knowledge, specialised European and US teams can advise on how to protect and defend against on-line fraud. response TIME less than 0.3 milliseconds can handle up to 30,000 requests per second

5 IP Intelligence within Online Gaming Applications 5 Understand how and where visitors connect Hosting centres Satellites Domains Anonymisers Tors Mobiles There are several suppliers and systems available that can determine where an IP is and for a small investment you can get an answer, but is it the right one? Determining the correct location of an IP address and discovering other critical information for use in fraud and jurisdictional decisions requires advanced infrastructure analysis, as opposed to simply scraping internet registries or repackaging publically available free data. Digital Element s premium IP Intelligence, at its most granular level, can accurately locate a user down to the city/postal code sector level without becoming personally-identifiable. The coverage is global, accuracy is 99.99% at a country level, and the data is refreshed regularly. Importantly it can also determine how a user connects, enabling the identification of data that merchants need to effectively combat fraud such as VPN s, Satellites, Anonymisers, Tors, Mobiles, ISP s, Domains and Hosting centres. This is achieved by combining IP routing infrastructure analysis with anonymous location insight gleaned from a network of global commercial partners, whilst maintaining user anonymity and compliance with end-user privacy. NetAcuity is an effective one source solution that is simple to integrate into any gaming site and manage in-house. Conversely, publically-available data has patchy global coverage, is rarely updated, is limited in terms of data parameters identified and is inherently inaccurate. conversion rates by 7 TIMES reduce fraud by 90%

6 IP Intelligence within Online Gaming Applications 6 Some of the data we provide to protect our clients Country Connection Type Time Zone ASN City/Region/State Mobile/WiFi Proxies Confidence Mobile Carrier Latitude/Longtitiude ISP Home/Business Zip/Postal Codes Phone Area Code Domain Industry Codes Custom Regions Company Name Org Name Demographics NetAcuity tidbits & techie stuff Client Platform integrates with all operating systems and applications Weekly database updates Up-and-running in as little as 20 minutes! Latency - As low as.03 milliseconds Capable of over 30,000 IP resolutions per second Custom support available for most programming languages and client platforms Support - 24/7 technical support Support for 32-/64-bit computing platforms, Red Hat Enterprise, Linux 4+, Solaris, 10-Intel, Solaris 8-SPARC, Windows 2003 & 2008 Server API C, C++, C#, Perl, Java, PHP,.NET, Ruby and Python Sample clients